The city of Waukesha (pop. 65k) is in the Wisconsin south east. In 2006 it was included in Money Magazine's list of the 100 best places to live in the US. Plans are currently in place to make Waukesha the second city in Wisconsin with city-wide wifi.

The Carl Zach Cycling Classic is a 7-corner criterium course in downtown Waukesha. It is advertised as having an acute turn into a moderate climb and a couple of turns before a descent on the back side. Despite the topography, If this race were West of basin & range country it would have been billed as flat and fast. The race is known for having excellent community support, and even at 9am the course was lined with cheering spectators for our little amateur 4s race. Memories of this morning are a little foggy, but we did 30 miles at an average of 26mph.

I don't have much to say about this race other than that I'm glad I finished with my skin intact. There were 2-3 person pileups every 10 minutes, with at least 3 bonus wrecks on the bell lap alone. After seeing a friend riding rough-shod over a fallen soldier like an 18th century french Marquis, I thought it would be best to trade some speed for prudence. I guess that's a fancy way of saying that I had neither the position nor legs to contest the finish and rolled across the line somewhere in the 20s.

Given how safe the last week of racing has been, the amount of blood spilled today was a worrying return to the Blue Island-style racing seen on day 1. I think a lot of it is local riders who work during the week jump into a weekend crit with fresh legs and visions of Superweek glory. But there were also a whole lot of lapped riders that never got pulled out, with some of them jumping into the final sprint just for kicks. That was pretty lame, not to mention totally preventable.

I high-tailed it out of Waukesha after the results from the 4s race had been made final. I went on a very interesting afternoon tour "The Architecture of Culture and Commerce" in Chicago, where I'll be spending the night before the criterium in Evanston tomorrow morning.